Engineers work on an Airbus aircraft at their assembly plant in Tianjin in north eastern China on May 6, 2011. (Getty Images/AFP)

(Newser)
–
Asia isn't just snapping up low-wage unskilled manufacturing jobs from the US; thanks to rapidly expanding engineering and research capabilities, the continent, and particularly China, have been able to lure away America's high-tech manufacturing jobs, too, according to a new report from the National Science Board. In the last decade the US lost 687,000 of these high-tech jobs—a sizable 28%, the Washington Post reports.

China and some other countries have poured vast funds and efforts into boosting engineering. These days, China spends just as much on research and development as the US, and awards more doctoral degrees to engineers than we do. The result? Twice as many researchers for US-based multinationals now live overseas, as compared to 2000. Still, there's some good news: All this has led to rapidly growing Chinese wages, so "China’s overwhelming manufacturing cost advantage over the US is shrinking fast," the report says.

And here, we are laying off teachers. Not to mention, why would our brightest students go into engineering when all the big money is made in finance? Finance, where you don't produce anything, you just shuffle paper around. That's where our lead in research and development is going, to wall street.

JRowse

Jan 18, 2012 4:08 PM CST

Maybe China will do something similar to the USA's H1-B visa program. This will discourage Chinese citizens from studying science, technology, engineering and math just as successfully it has in the US. No one will major in STEM subjects when they know they will be replaced by an Indian guest worker. Something like the H1-B visa program would help the US and other countries spy on Communist China. By allowing foreign nationals access to its secret military research and enabling industrial espionage through a guest worker program like the H1-B China can both weaken its national security while lowering its standard of living at the same time.

$4565535

Jan 18, 2012 2:34 PM CST

Come on China, you have over a billion people - isn't it about time for a revolution yet? Unless you want to work 35 hour shifts for 17 cents an hour forever